EPGP Explained: All Your Questions Answered

INTRODUCTION

EPGP. You hear it a lot when we raid, but there may be some confusion as to what it actually does. I’ve had to explain it a hundred times so I’m going to do my best to explain it here and hopefully answer any questions that you have or may have in the future.

WHAT IS EPGP

EPGP is an addon that manages and disperses loot based on a priority system. It’s what we use to distribute loot throughout the guild to ensure proper spread of gear across the people who are going to use it best. It is an absolute requirement to have this addon prior to raiding with GamingLyfe. If you do not have this addon installed, you WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR LOOT. You can download it here.

EARNING EFFORT POINTS

Effort points are the bread of the EPGP system. You earn effort points for a variety of things including:

  • On-Time bonus @ 6PM — 10000 EP
  • Every 15 minutes in raid — 1000 EP
  • Farm Boss Kill — 2000 EP
  • Farm Boss Wipe — 1000 EP
  • Progression Kill — 2500 EP
  • Progression Wipe — 1500 EP

Other things can earn you effort points like if the raid leader decides that a certain boss kill was done expertly and is deserving of additional points. Your effort points help to determine your priority on gear. We’ll get to that in a moment.

LOSING EFFORT POINTS

Just as you can gain effort points, you can also lose effort points. Losing points will happen when something you do causes direct damage to a pull or to the raid group in a whole. For instance, if you’re AFK for a pull you will not gain EP for that pull and may lose additional EP for the inconvenience. These instances are rare and should not happen often if at all. One of the officers will explain the reasoning for the loss when it happens.

EARNING GEAR POINTS

If effort points are the bread of the system, then gear points are the butter. You earn gear points when you get loot. Each item has a set value of points that it’s worth based on stats, item level, and extra affixes or sockets. This is determined automatically by the system itself and has no real bearing other than to help determine priority. When you earn gear points, you can earn them in a few different ways:

  • Best in Slot / Major Upgrade = 100% of the GP value
    This selection should be made if the item you see is something that would provide a major upgrade to you in your class. Typically this would mean taking something from a very low item level, for example,840, and replacing it with an item level 870 item. Major upgrade. Best in Slot would be something that has your best stats and is considered to be the best item for that slot by other players in your role.
  • Minor Upgrade = 75% of the GP value
    This selection should be made if the upgrade to your item is minimal, meaning that you have a very similar item in both item level and stats and upgrading would provide a very small increase to your output. For example, you are wearing an 880 item and an 885 item drops. This would be a minor upgrade unless there was a major difference in stats. The decrease in GP value is because you are giving up your priority spot if someone else needs the item for a major upgrade and there is a slight incentive for doing so to help improve the guild as a whole.
  • Offspec/Greed = 0% of the GP value
    This selection is made when you are wanting an item that is not for your primary spec. For instance, if an artifact relic dropped for a Holy Paladin and a Prot Paladin wanted to build his holy set, he would use this selection to bid for the item. This is NOT to be used to get items for free and is something that will be monitored. If you abuse the system, it will abuse you back.

DETERMINING PRIORITY

EPGP uses a simple equation to determine who wins the gear that drops. We vary it a little with the ranks in the guild but among members of equal rank it is as follows: EP / GP = Priority. The person with the higher priority on an item (if they are the same rank) will get the item. As an example, take two people who have equal EP at 100000. One person has a GP of 5000 while the other has a GP of 10000. This means that the 2nd player has gotten more gear over the same amount of raids (as the effort points are the same) and thus the person with the lower GP score would be given priority on the item. That’s the beauty of the system is that it’s designed to equally distribute loot among eligible parties to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to improve and it’s not just based on luck of the roll.

Additionally, GamingLyfe takes one other factor into account when determining the priority for loot: rank in the guild. There are three different ranks for raiders in the guild:

  • Core Raiders / Officers / Guild Master – First priority for loot. This means if someone in one of these ranks needs an item, it will go to them based on their priority among players in their rank. Anyone below this rank would be ineligible for the loot.
  • Core Trial – Second priority for loot. If no one in the Core Raider or above ranks needs an item, Core Trials become eligible for the loot. This is because we are still actively trying to gear our trial raiders so they perform better and, once they get into core status, can compete with raiders who’ve been raiding for longer.
  • Raid Prospect – Last priority for loot. As this rank is a rank intended for those who are not as dedicated to the cause for progression as other ranks in the guild, this is the last priority for loot. If no one needs an item, the item will go to Prospects by priority and be given to someone on the list.

Exceptions can and will be made to the way the loot system works depending on the need of an item by another individual. Typically this will be a situation where a tank or healer needs an item that is a best in slot piece for them and will cause great improvement in survivability for the raid. In these instances, priority may be ignored and the player will get the item regardless of other bids. This happening is extremely rare but is something that’s happened before so it is worth mentioning.

DECAY OF EP/GP

Every Tuesday after our farm night, both EP and GP will decay by 25%. This means that you lose 25% of your total EP and GP. The reason for this is to stop people from hoarding points to save for items later on. Every time the decay happens, everyone gets a little bit closer together in EP and GP. The priorities stay the same but are more easily affected by additions in EP and GP because of the lower amount.

That being said if you need an item that drops don’t hesitate to bid for it. It’s better to get the gear out of the way so you can build your points later. If it’s just a minor upgrade, you can select minor upgrade and that will be sufficient.

HOW IS LOOT DISTRIBUTED

Whenever a boss dies and the loot master loots the boss a window will pop up for every piece of gear that drops. These windows will show you what the item is, tell you the GP value, and give you options to select your preference for it. This window looks like this:

You’ll have 90 seconds once this window pops up to decide whether you want the gear. After 90 seconds, all the loot gets handed out based on the priority system.

As previously stated, the secondary priority order will be in place here. Where Core Raiders get gear over Trials and Trials get gear over Prospects. While loot is being distributed, you should be continuing onto the next boss, clearing any trash along the way. You can still get the loot regardless of if you’re next to the boss or not.

AN ITEM DROPPED AND ITS A HUGE UPGRADE…

Something like this happens every week. The goal here is to get people the gear that they need and get it for them as fair as possible. When an item that’s a huge upgrade drops, just roll that it’s a huge upgrade. That’s all I can really say. If you have the priority for the item, you will get the loot. Again, in some extreme circumstances there may be some exception but expect that this would be extremely rare. You probably won’t ever see one of these exceptions.

What’s important to remember about gear is that when we kill bosses (like we do every single week) gear will drop. The item will likely drop again and again. You will get it eventually and making a big deal about not getting it just isn’t fair to the other people in the raid. So please don’t.

CONCLUSION

These were all the questions I could think of. If the question you have isn’t listed here, feel free to ask and I will provide an answer as best as I can. This is a complete explanation of how we use EPGP, why we use EPGP, and how it effects you. But if it is in some way incomplete, I would love to complete it.

Written by
G-LYFE a gaming culture and lifestyle brand. We live to game. Visit GamingLyfe.com for all your latest gaming news, reviews, Esports highlights, live streaming news, Cosplay, and G-LYFE Merchandise.

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